President Donald Trump is openly hinting at taking over the midterm elections by declaring a national emergency.
Newsmax’s Wayne Allen Root interviewed Trump just after midnight Tuesday morning, and said that Trump had the right to declare a national security emergency next month, forcing through photo identification, proof of citizenship, limits on mail-in ballots, and other heavy voting restrictions. Trump seemed to like that suggestion, but didn’t want to tip his hand.
“Let me just say stranger things have happened, okay? I’ll leave it at that,” Trump said.
Trump is afraid of massive Republican losses in November’s midterms, and has been unsuccessfully pushing his allies in Congress to pass the draconian SAVE Act. With that appearing more unlikely each day, Democrats and other Trump critics are raising concerns that he may take drastic action, such as declaring a national emergency and maybe deploying legions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to the polls.
In fact, Democrats have been trying for close to a year to get documents from the Department of Homeland Security regarding its policies and memos on sending ICE agents to polls. Agents were seen at polling places in Texas during its May primaries and in California in June, but when Democrats used the Freedom of Information Act to investigate, they were sent useless press clippings.
If Trump tries to invoke national security to take over federal elections, it would shatter precedent and could set off lawsuits and protests across the country. His repeated, disproven claims about voter fraud and rigged elections suggest that he’ll make the same excuses in November. The question is how to ensure a fair and accurate result that can stand up to his attacks.
Dude, did you not see the UNARMED woman standing up to ICE with a gun to her face?
You have no idea how fast a grass movement happens.
You’re not going to beat an ICE agents gun with your face. Let me know when it’s an armed woman.
Occupy, Tea Party, BLM, Anti-vaxers, #MeToo, Palestine protests. Grassroots movement pop up fast and die out even faster.
Well then you shouldn’t stress over it anymore. Go curl up into a ball or whatever.
The Tea Party might be a bad example as they pretty successfully mainstreamed a whole bunch of crazies and got them elected. We’re still dealing with them. I wish any left movement had half the organization and backing the Tea Party did.
Also the Tea Party was an astroturf operation from its onset.
The Tea Party was an outgrowth of the '08 Ron Paul movement that got devoured from the inside out by neocons and tech fascists. And that was back in the '10s, years before Trump made his fateful run.
Yeah, people won under the Tea Party banner. But mostly empty suits like Paul Ryan and ethno-nationalists like Mike Lee. Your Thomas Massie types were always vanishingly few and far between.
Ron Paul is a racist crackpot
Enthusiastic crackpots are routinely the thin wedge used to divide low-information populations. Especially when the institutional leadership has grown complacent, corrupt, and incompetent.
The Bush/Obama Era was a historical string of policy failures by both major parties. They left enormous populations of deeply dissatisfied Americans in their wake, many of whom were ripe for exploitation.